Delhi Metro is a 'Suicide Hotspot'

12 people committed suicide at various Delhi Metro stations. In the previous 9 years, the number of Delhi Metro suicides was 10. This exponential increase has prompted the Washington Post to report the Delhi Metro as a 'Suicide Hotspot.'

12 people committed suicide at various Delhi Metro stations. In the previous 9 years, the number of Delhi Metro suicides was 10. This exponential increase has prompted the Washington Post to report the Delhi Metro as a "Suicide Hotspot." What has surprised the authorities about the Delhi Metro suicides is that most of the people are younger than 30 years. Moreover, in a country where the number of rural suicides outstrips urban suicides 2:1, this sudden rise in Delhi Metro suicides has got all the authorities concerned.

"Metro lines around the world have confronted this problem," said Anuj Dayal, a spokesperson for the Delhi Metro Rail Corp to the Washington Post, "but what is really worrying for us here is that many of the suicides are by young people."

The report further says that the reasons for the Delhi Metro urban suicides could be attributed to increasing urban pressures like education and searching for a job. "Rapid social changes are creating more helplessness and despair," is what Vikram Patel, a professor of international mental health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine wrote in a Lancet journal essay titled "Suicide Mortality in India." He went on to say, "With education, young people’s aspirations are growing, and they are surrounded by the narrative of booming India, but somehow the real India they encounter is not as promising as they are led to believe."

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Other reasons for the rise in urban suicides are linked to romance, mostly to do with parents not approving of a certain partner choice. In the Delhi Metro suicides, people have either been jumping in front of trains or jumping from the foot overbridges. India still considers attempted suicide as a punishable crime and while it might be a long wait before that law changes, the Delhi Metro is hoping that passengers will help them curb suicide attempts by reporting suspicious behaviour such as crying people standing on overbridges or people who have sipped more than two trains.